


With Your Eyes Watching Me

by purple_bookcover



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Rarepair, Role Reversal, Secret Santa, poor urchin Ferdinand, rich girl Dorothea, what if Ferdinand was the one who grew up performing on the streets?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22071379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_bookcover/pseuds/purple_bookcover
Summary: Ferdinand can feel her eyes on him. Ever since he was a child, Dorothea watched him with those eyes, judging him for being poor, for being less. Even with a war erupting around them, he decides he can't take it anymore.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: Fire Emblem Three Houses Rarepair Port Secret Santa





	With Your Eyes Watching Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Regina in the Rarepair Discord server. Happy holidays! I loved your role swap idea so I ran with it. I was really curious to see what happens if you made Ferdinand the poor boy who grew up performing for coins and Dorothea the privileged upper crust staring at him.

Ferdinand felt eyes on him. They were insects crawling up under his shirt and tickling his back and shoulders. Insects pinching, digging in tiny claws and scratching until Ferdinand felt raw. 

He turned and found Dorothea staring.

The magic in his palm fizzled. He felt the spell draining out of him, retreating to a place where he could no longer reach it. Cold dread rushed in to replace it, ice in his veins. Dorothea regarded him across the training hall, her lance gripped in her hands. Even her training clothes were far too fine: Tall boots with silver buttons, a tunic that flared at her hips, pants with silver stripes running up the sides. 

Ferdinand wore a plain brown tunic and the trousers he'd had five years ago as a student. They exposed his ankles now, too short to accommodate his growth spurt in the five years since the world went berserk, but they were the cleanest pants he had available for training that day. 

He hadn't even been able to cut his hair in five years. It fell down his back in a tangle of orange. Before, when he'd just been a student, he'd been proud of keeping it tidy. 

And Dorothea? She'd only become more lovely over the past five years, her hair silky and quaffed, her clothing new and fine. 

Ferdinand turned away abruptly. He'd tried to keep the peace since they all returned to the monastery. Dorothea was his ally and they were in a war now. It was no time for a petty grievance over her wealthy, luxurious upbringing. 

But feeling those eyes on him, those crawling, probing, questioning eyes – it was too much. Ferdinand abandoned his training and the training hall itself in one swift turn, hurrying out of the hall with those eyes skittering over his back.

#

Ferdinand sang.

His voice cracked. It felt small and insufficient in the center of a bustling market square in Enbarr, but then, Ferdinand himself was small and insufficient. A runt. Small even for a child. Skinny, scrawny, underfed. Struggling to sing at the top of his tiny voice.

A passerby dropped a coin into the hat Ferdinand set before him. Fewer coins than usual today and so many of them dull copper. His throat ached, sore and ragged from hours, days, months of singing for scraps, but still he carried on. Coppers would hardly get him enough bread to last the week and he was so very hungry. 

A silver coin dropped into the hat. Ferdinand looked up, his voice choking off abruptly. 

A girl his age stared at him, her green eyes unblinking. She wore a fine, frilly dress and shoes with silver buttons. The buttons alone could feed Ferdinand for days if he sold them, he thought. 

Ferdinand's eyes trailed back up to meet the girl's. She was still staring, just staring. Ferdinand felt placed on an enormous scale, teetering on shaky legs as the girl measured him. What did she see? What did she want?

A man came and took the little girl's hand. “Don't throw silvers, Dorothea,” the man said, bending to take the coin back.

Ferdinand's heart leapt into his throat. But Dorothea stopped the man. “It's for him, papa.” 

“You know how I feel about you being wasteful,” the man said.

“It's not a waste,” she said.

“Dorothea.” The man dragged out her name in warning. 

“Papa, please,” Dorothea said. “You told me it was my silver to use how I wanted.” 

Ferdinand couldn't stand it any more. He snatched up the whole hat while Dorothea and her father continued arguing his worth, debating his very existence right before his eyes, like he wasn't even standing before them dirty and hungry and haggard. 

Ferdinand clutched the hat to his chest and ran, feeling eyes crawling over his back as he fled.

#

He did not get far.

Ferdinand rushed away from the training room, but quick as his steps were, Dorothea soon caught him.

She grabbed him by the wrist, forcing him to pause and spin toward her. His mouth flinched into a frown. 

“Where are you going?” Dorothea said. He could swear she was smiling.

“I have other business to attend to today,” Ferdinand said, desperate to cling to his composure. She wouldn't see him rattled that easily. 

“We haven't finished with our training,” Dorothea said. “Everyone else is still back at the training hall.” 

“I finished,” Ferdinand said. 

“Come on, Ferdie, please,” Dorothea said.

“Do not refer to me that way.” He yanked his wrist free and started to back away.

“Wait,” she called. “Please. Don't run from me.”

“I'm not running,” Ferdinand said. “I told you, I have other business to attend to. You're interrupting me and I find it quite rude. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to be on my way.” 

Still, she hurried after him, falling into step beside him as he marched away. “Please, Ferdinand. Can't we talk?”

“I can not imagine what we would speak about,” he said. 

“We're allies,” Dorothea said. “We're in this together now. You can't shut me out forever.”

“I will be perfectly civil,” Ferdinand said. “I've never acted otherwise.”

“I don't want civil,” Dorothea said. “I want to know why you hate me so much.”

He stopped short, facing her. His mouth constricted over the words he wished he could say, his jaw tightening. Perhaps he should just say it, perhaps he should just blurt it out and let her live with her own actions. But he found his tongue heavy when he contemplated saying the words. 

“I'd encourage you to consider that question on your own,” Ferdinand said.

“Please,” Dorothea said. “Help me. How can I fix this if I don't even know why you're so mad?”

“I'm not mad,” Ferdinand said. “I simply have no time for this. If you cannot figure it out on your own, I shall not be the one to help you.” 

“But--”

He turned away, determined to be free of her this time. Thankfully, she did not follow as he rounded the corner and broke into a run.

#

It was only a matter time until Dimitri returned to Garreg Mach, marching his army toward Edelgard to take back the town and school.

Edelgard and her forces intended to be ready. Edelgard had them training or attending strategy meetings constantly. Ferdinand could not avoid Dorothea's constant presence, the scrape of her eyes always raking against his skin. He longed for the battle to begin, if only to escape those looks. 

Worst yet, Dorothea seemed intent on forcing them to talk. She found ways into Ferdinand's path no matter how he tried to avoid her, accosting him while he practiced his magic, cornering him in the dining hall, cutting him off when he tried to slip out of meetings early. 

Every time, Ferdinand refused to talk. He couldn't meet those searching eyes without his stomach twisting into knots, old dread and shame welling up within him. Why did she insist on constantly reminding him of his childhood and, worse, that day so long ago when even as a child she'd looked down on him with pity and scorn? Why couldn't she just let him be? 

Finally, he broke. The next time Dorothea accosted him in a hall, he stood his ground and demanded an answer.

“Why are you doing this?” Ferdinand said. “Why can't you leave me be?”

“Because I don't understand, Ferdinand,” Dorothea said. 

“What is there to understand? I have given you sufficient answer. You may consider the question on your own, but I am quite done with this conversation.”

“But that's just the thing,” Dorothea said. “I _have_ considered it. Night and day. It keeps me awake at night. And still I'm no closer to understanding your animosity toward me. Please, tell me how I've offended you so I can try to make it right.”

Make it right? _Make it right?_

Ferdinand felt his lip curling in a sneer. How did this rich girl think she could make growing up in poverty _right_? How did she mean to undo the haughty glares that had prickled Ferdinand's back for his entire life?

“Are you a genuine idiot or an accidental one?” Ferdinand said.

“Excuse me?” Dorothea said.

“Have you truly come no closer to an answer?” Ferdinand said.

She held her hands out helplessly. “No, Ferdinand. I've tried. I've thought back on every interaction we've had since coming to this school and I--”

“Think back further,” Ferdinand said.

“What?”

“Further,” he repeated. 

She paused, brows knotting. Ferdinand waited, refusing to help, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Ferdinand, truly, I do not know what you could mean,” she said.

He struggled not to spit. He couldn't explain, he _wouldn't_ explain. But he could do something else. 

Ferdinand began to sing. 

It was an old song, a stupid, childish song performed by a dirty, hungry, desperate boy begging for coins. He still remembered every word.

Dorothea's face went pale. “That song,” she said.

He stopped. “Do you remember now?”

“Oh, Ferdinand. That was you all those years ago?”

“Did you seriously not know?” he said.

“I swear, Ferdinand, I...” Dorothea put her hands over her mouth. “I've been such a fool.” 

This time, it was Dorothea who attempted to escape. Something in Ferdinand couldn't allow it to end that way. He reached out, grabbing her arm before she could get too far. 

“Wait,” he said. “Please.”

Her eyes shone when she looked back at him. “I didn't know,” she said. “All these years, I had no idea you were the boy from the market.”

“Then why?” he said.

“Why what?”

“Why do you stare?” Ferdinand said. “You stared that day in the market. You stare at me still. It's like knives in my back, knowing your eyes are still seeing that boy begging for coins in Enbarr.” 

“Ferdinand,” she said, his name a whisper passing her lips. “Oh, Ferdinand.” She shifted so she could take both his hands in hers. 

Her eyes shimmered when she looked directly into his. And this time, it wasn't a gaze that pierced or probed. Those green eyes were soft as grass basking in summer sunlight, gentle as wind between the blades. 

“I wasn't staring because you were poor,” Dorothea said. “I was staring because your song was so beautiful I couldn't look away.”

He blinked. “What?”

“That day in the market,” Dorothea said. “That child who was singing. I gave you a silver because it was everything my father had given me that day and your song was so beautiful I felt you should have it instead. I didn't understand. I was a child, too. I was... naive. Growing up the way I did, I didn't understand poverty. I just understood that your song was … lovely.”

Ferdinand's throat filled with sand. Years of feeling judged, years and years of feeling lesser than his radiant, privileged classmate. And it all came down to the ignorance of a child. 

“I'm so sorry,” Dorothea said. “I don't know what to say.”

“It's OK,” he choked out.

“It's not.”

He snorted a laugh. “Very well, it's not. You are correct. But I... I would be eager to forgive you.”

“Really?” She watched him with hope, with longing, with raw, defenseless regret. 

“Yes,” he said. The smile came easily to his lips. 

“How?” she said. She shook her head as though still not believing.

“Why don't I start by singing for you?” he said. 

“I couldn't possibly ask you to do that,” Dorothea said. 

He released her hands and looped his arm through hers instead. “No, but you didn't ask. I offered. Now, we must find a suitable location. The acoustics of the hallway are simply dreadful.” 

She smiled, squeezing on their linked arms, and they started down the hall together.

**Author's Note:**

> I made a deliberate choice to keep Ferdinand's speech style the same as it is in game. I think it paints it in an interesting light when you do the role reversal. Here, he talks the way he does almost as a defense mechanism, rather than as a result of his upbringing. 
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!


End file.
